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Anapa hotels: why we removed these lists
Editorial Position
Updated:8 min1,634 words

Anapa hotels: why we removed these lists

The seven articles about Anapa at this address are no longer available. They were roundups of all-inclusive hotels, hotels with a pool, hotels with a private beach, hotels by the sea, hotels for families with children, resort complexes, and a guide to thirty-three city attractions.

A short answer for the reader who was looking for sea and sand. There is no hotel list here, and there never will be. The reason is not only where we stand: all these years, the resort remained on sale with us as an ordinary summer destination. We will no longer sell a place that has no civil air service in this way.

💡 At a glance:

  • which seven articles were removed and where the old links now lead
  • what has happened to air service in southern Russia since February 2022
  • why we do not answer the question "so how do you get there now"
  • which seaside destinations remain in our live sections
  • Last updated: 09/2026

Why we deleted these guides

The seven removed texts were a typical resort showcase: sorting by meal plan, by pool, by distance to the water, by children's program. The old addresses in all language versions now have permanent redirects to this page.

Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine began on February 24, 2022. We believe that after that date, the resort on Russia's Azov-Black Sea coast stopped being what our texts described it as, and that continuing to publish sorted hotel lists about it was a mistake that we are now correcting.

The seventh removed text stood out from the rest: it was a guide to the city's attractions, not a hotel roundup. We removed it too, because paired with the six hotel lists it did the same job they did, just one step earlier: first it convinced readers there was a reason to go, and then it passed them along the chain. Separating these materials by genre would have been a formality.

The share of non-oil-and-gas revenue in Russia's federal budget, which includes resort industry taxes, has grown to roughly 78 percent (OSW Centre for Eastern Studies, 09.12.2025). The bill for your vacation ends up exactly there.

The skies over southern Russia have been closed since February 2022

This is the key fact for this entire text, and it can be verified in official documents.

On February 28, 2022, the European Union adopted Council Regulation (EU) 2022/334, banning Russian air carriers from landing, taking off, and flying over EU territory; the ban also applies to aircraft registered in Russia and to aircraft controlled by Russian persons and companies, including code-sharing agreements (EUR-Lex). On the same day, Russia announced mirror restrictions on the use of its airspace for aircraft from 36 countries, including EU member states, the United Kingdom, and the United States (Leiden Law Blog).

Inside Russia itself, the picture is no better. Since the invasion began in February 2022, 11 airports in the south and center of the country have stopped operating, and Anapa is named directly in that list, along with Krasnodar, Rostov-on-Don, Gelendzhik, and the airports of Crimea; the closure was initially presented as temporary and then repeatedly extended (The Moscow Times, 26.04.2024).

Partial reopenings began only in 2024 and 2025: Elista in May 2024, Gelendzhik in summer 2025, Krasnodar on September 11, 2025 with a limited schedule (The Moscow Times, 11.09.2025). Anapa Airport is not on that list of reopenings. Meanwhile, in May 2026, 13 airports in southern Russia were closed at the same time (NV, 05.2026). This is not a restoration of service, but an intermittent regime.

A resort that has had no normal civil air service since February 2022, and whose neighboring airports close in batches at the height of the season, is not a tourist destination. Our hotel roundups continued to exist as if none of this were happening.

Why we do not answer the question "so how do you get there"

We know that some readers come here specifically for that, and we answer directly so that no one wastes their time. There are no routes, transfers, border crossings, or ways to get there in this text, and there never will be.

This is not posturing. Practical information about travel to Russia for a publisher from the European Union falls under the very services prohibited by Article 5n(2) of Regulation 833/2014 as amended by Regulation 2025/2033 (EUR-Lex), and advertising services related to them are named separately (Skadden, 11.2025). On top of that, there is an official recommendation: the German Foreign Office warns against travel to the Russian Federation (Auswärtiges Amt).

There is a second reason, an editorial one. We will not claim whether a specific flight to a specific airport in southern Russia is operating today, because we do not have a verified source with current schedules, and a guess in a text people read before traveling is unacceptable. It is better to honestly say that we do not know than to get it wrong.

What this means for you if you are in the EU or the US

Item

Status 09/2026

Source

Services related to tourism in Russia

Prohibited by Article 5n(2) of Regulation 833/2014 as amended by Regulation 2025/2033 of 23.10.2025

EUR-Lex

Air links with the EU

Closed since 28.02.2022 in both directions

EUR-Lex, Regulation 2022/334, Leiden Law Blog

Anapa airport

Closed since February 2022 as one of 11 airports in southern and central Russia; not listed among those partially reopened in 2024-2025

The Moscow Times, 26.04.2024

State of the region in 2026

In May 2026, 13 airports in southern Russia were closed at the same time

NV, 05.2026

German Foreign Office advisory

"Vor Reisen in die Russische Föderation wird gewarnt"

Auswärtiges Amt

Travel market

Organized tourism to Russia fell by roughly 90 percent as early as 2022

industry statistics review, Fox News, 2022

Where to go instead

The need readers came to these guides with was warm sea, a sandy beach, all-inclusive dining, and a vacation with children without a long journey. The live sections of the site answer that: Bulgaria with its Black Sea coast, Montenegro, Cyprus and Turkey, as well as Greece and Croatia. For sandy beaches and a family format, we have material on Bulgaria, Albania and Tunisia.

The overall explanation for the whole section is collected in the section hub. Related texts: our position on Gelendzhik and our position on a resort summer in Sochi.

Where we stand

We believe that publishing a resort guide for a place that has had no normal civil air links since February 2022, and where the region's airports are closed in whole groups, means misleading the reader even without a single political word. In our assessment, this is a separate mistake, beyond the main one: we should not have kept promoting vacations in a country waging war against a neighboring state at all. We decided to remove all seven pieces and explain the reason at the same address.

We write about a state and its policies, not about people based on their passport. There are people in Russia who spoke out against the war and received prison sentences for it. Our decision not to publish guides to Russia is about money, sanctions and reader safety, not nationality.

Publication date: September 3, 2026. Last updated: September 3, 2026.

⁉️🤔 Frequently asked questions

Can you at least say whether planes fly there now?

No, and this is a deliberate refusal. We explained the reasons above, in the section "Why we don't answer the question 'how do I get there'".

Do you simply not want to write about it, or is it actually prohibited?

Both. Our position would be the same even without sanctions, but a legal framework also exists: under Regulation 2025/2033 of 23.10.2025, EU persons are prohibited from providing services directly related to tourism activities in Russia, including advertising such services.

Hotels in Anapa are privately owned, why does this concern the state?

Because the EU ban is formulated based on the service, not ownership, and because taxes from the resort industry go to the budget. The share of non-oil-and-gas revenues in it has grown to roughly 78 percent.

Where do old links to these guides lead?

To this page, in all language versions. The reader gets an explanation, a list of sources, and a list of seaside destinations we continue to cover.

In short

Seven guides to hotels and attractions in Anapa have been deleted, and old addresses redirect here. Air traffic between Russia and the EU has been closed in both directions since February 28, 2022. This text deliberately contains no practical information on how to get there. The seaside destinations we continue to cover are listed above.

How you can help

We do not collect money and receive nothing from the links below. These are official websites of organizations working with the consequences of the war:

Sources

Link check date: 03.09.2026.

tourism.com.de Editorial Team
tourism.com.de Editorial TeamTravel editorial team: research, fact-checking, updates→ All publications

A small editorial team writing guides for independent travel. We travel ourselves, but we haven’t been everywhere, so we check prices, opening hours and how to get there against official sources.